Saturday, March 1, 2008

Scarred for Life: Sunday Scribblings

Marcy from My Knitting & Other Stuff tagged me for a meme about "six non-important things/habits/quirks." I wrote this at some ungodly hour a few mornings ago, but hadn't yet posted it. Then I saw the Sunday Scribblings "Time Machine" prompt and realized this could do for it.Pictures don't transport me back in time. I see the pictures and can recall, to some degree, the moment the picture was taken, but that's about it. What can take me back are the scars I bear.

1. When I was 7 or 8, I stuck myself on a button a boy up the street was showing off to me. I bled and bled and bled and bled. My mom was out doing the grocery shopping and the like for the brood, so it was up to my dad to make it stop. Thankfully, Mom came back within the hour. I've got a slash across the left hand's middle finger.

2. When I was 13, I was riding in a car with a bunch of friends, all in the same condition I was. I had my hand out the window. The idiot driver, an 18-year-old boy who'd hotwired his sister's car, veered as close as he could to parked cars. Slammed my hand into a side-view mirror. Long, ugly scar on my right hand pointer finger.

3. When I was definitely old enough to know better, I decided to make my dog actually slow down enough to taste the filet mignon I was feeding him. Bit the tip of my right hand pointer finger. That got infected and I ended up in the emergency room, watching the doctor stick something through the whole width of the tip to clean it out. Chunk of flesh gone from that finger, and scars on both sides.

4. The first time I met that same dog, I was playing tug-of-war with him. He leapt. I was too slow to back up. Bit me in the mouth. I bled profusely. And then I bled some more. I went to the ER and ended up with four stitches and a lovely scar on my upper lip.

5. My father died of melanoma when he was 56 years old. I get myself checked fairly frequently. So far I've had 14 chunks of flesh taken off of various parts of my body. Only two were of any concern, and a minor concern at that.

6. Eldest was born via C-section. I should have had a zipper put in that opening. Although Daughter was a VBAC, the 10-pound Youngest was a C-section. I do believe my C-section scar wins for biggest. Granted, Pete's upcoming bypass scar will put my kangaroo pouch scar to shame. Such an over-achiever, that one.

I hope you're not left with any mental scars after reading this. Go get transformed back in time by checking out others' offerings at Sunday Scribblings this week.

9 comments:

Hurray!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for opening up your comments! I love reading your stuff, and I hate that I haven't been able to comment.

You've got a pretty good set of scars, it sounds like. I, too, get hacked at the dermatologist. Am due for another appointment, actually. And did I know that you'd had a VBAC? Me too! Glad to know that! I need to dig up a picture of my VBAC carry bag that I bought! LOL

I'm the opposite - the photos take me way back, but I find it hard to remember what caused the scars. Thankfully I seem to have fewer and less memorable ones than you. Most of my injuries didn't leave scars, though they did leave some lasting after-effects.

I am a newcomer to your blog, so I don't know if you ever had your comments open, but now that you do, I just want to tell you that I've read some of your older posts and have enjoyed them very much and I have put you on my blog roll. I hope you don't mind.

As to the scars, they do help me remember events in my life too very vividly, so I can emphasize with that!

My time machine via your post took me back to getting third degree burns from an accident with boiling water as a baby. I was left with scars in rings around each ankle from where the hot water seeped into my shoes. I also have one scar shaped like a splash!

And two C-sections scars that are so close together the meet in certain places. It's great you had a VBAC.